3 NY Marine Rescue Center & Fish Ladders!
Riverhead
New York Marine Rescue Center
Today in class we ventured to the New York Marine Rescue Center in Riverhead and got a private tour of the facility and its contents from one of its employees, Victoria. She is one of their onsite biologists and is a wealth of information, whether it was about sea turtles, seals, or cetaceans she could answer any of our questions and taught the class a lot of information.
As a surfer who is in the water year round I see more seals than surfers when I'm in the water during the winter and they have always piqued my interest, so it was the information about them that I found most fascinating. While there are 5 species of seals known to inhabit New York's waters, we focused on the Gray, Harp, and Harbor seals. The seals that I see most frequently are the Gray seals, I'm able to distinguish them from the others because of their size and unique horse look. I was able to see and handle the skull of one at the rescue center and when compared to a horse skull they are nearly indistinguishable.
Their teeth always freak me out when I'm in the water with them and seeing their teeth up close in the skull did not make me feel any better, especially when I learned that they swallow their fish whole so the teeth are purely for defense. When they bring seals to the rescue center the biologists have to wear chainmail gloves to protect their hands because of the teeth and bite force of the seals. They also need to use a prop to keep the seal's mouth open and a large syringe to put down the seal's throat when they are being stubborn and won't eat during the rehabilitation process. 
The rehabilitation process usually takes eight weeks for them, and the NYMRC is the only place in New York that will rehabilitate seals. During that process they are put on meal plans, possibly antibiotics, or a physical rehab process depending on their reason for admission. After their rehab program you can find most of the seals being released at Tiana in Hampton Bays after the center gets permission from noaa to do so. While the biologist told us it’s not likely, as the seals shed their coats, sometimes the animals will be released with satellite tags that are useful to science as it helps us gain a better understanding of their movements and use of habitat.
by Riley Smith
We went to the NY Marine Rescue Center in Riverhead’s Long Island Aquarium. I grew up on Long Island, so I had gone to the aquarium many times already, but I had not had a background tour of the rescue center where they rehabilitate marine mammals.
We got to see where they work with seals and sea turtles that were rescued for rehabilitation and will hopefully be released back into the waters. Their rescue is seasonal, where normally turtles are rescued in November to December due to cold stunning or hyperthermia, and seals during January. They typically work with 4 different species of sea turtles since those are in the Long Island area: Atlantic Green, Loggerhead, Leatherback and Kemp’s Ridley. The different species can be easily distinguished, and they are all susceptible to boat strikes, cold stunning, hunting, ingesting debris, etc.
A sea turtle's typical rehabilitation process can last 8 months. They want to take blood samples as soon as possible as it is easy to see what may be wrong physically on the outside, but it is harder to tell what is going on inside. This will then allow them to see what’s going on to set a course of action for their rehab plan. They will also have a physical once a month where they will take their blood, weight, and measurements to make sure they are gaining weight and growing. They will also tag their fins and insert pit tags, which are microchips. Sea turtles are tagged multiple ways just in case something happens to one tag, they have another. It is important to tag them because if they re-strand multiple times, that is not a good sign.
When the rescue center first brings a cold stunned sea turtle in, they will put them into a baby pool to gradually get their body temperature back up. They will also check the water’s pH, salinity, ozone, temperature, and chlorine (they clean with bleach, so they make sure it isn’t in the water). They clean the water every day to make sure it is a suitable environment for them to live in. They actually make their own salt water by collecting freshwater from the nearby river, shock it, then run it overnight and manually add salt to it, which I thought was pretty cool.
This picture is of one of the rooms where the rescue center will give the physicals and check blood work and water quality. On the screen she is pointing to is of a sea turtle from Texas, 2012, with a fishing hook lodged in its throat. It underwent surgery, rehabilitation, and was released back into the waters successfully.
These two pictures are of two of the turtles that are currently undergoing rehabilitation. The first image is a Kemp’s Ridley that had cold stun class 1. Cold stunning is when the waters drop too low a temperature for sea turtles to properly keep their body temperature up. They cannot regulate their body temperature themselves since they are endothermic. Cold stunning has classifications 1 through 4 where class 1 is if they are super active and responsive, and class 4 is the sea turtle has no response but is still alive. The second and third pictures are of a turtle that had debilitated turtle syndrome and was found young, small, and underweight drifting through seaweed. It had many wounds and barnacles on it, weighing it down. Normally turtles won’t have too many barnacles since they are very fast and active. Now, both turtles are doing much better, as I saw while I was there.
In the tank in the second picture, you can see a blue object in the center. That is a nutrient enrichment device, which is to provide mental and physical stimulation. Kemp’s like to hide, so it provides a place to do so as well. There is also a flow system for stimulation where they can swim against it.
This is Chestnut who is non-releasable. Since she was cold stunned, she was stranded and got hit by a boat which can deform the shells of sea turtles and cause air to get trapped underneath, which happened to her. She had a vest on her shell that helps with her buoyancy issues and diving.
Seals and Humans
A large number of seals come into the NY Marine Rescue Center with damage done by various types of plastic. Pictured above are two bags of such plastic. The green colored clump was wrapped around a large seal, leaving gruesome lacerations across their neck. The orange strand was wrapped around a young seal, just a pup. Luckily, the plastic was small enough to only leave a small, and healable, laceration. Plastic is a large issue in today’s world. It takes years, sometimes decades, to degrade and even then it is present as microplastics, equally as harmful.
On exhibit at the NY Marine Rescue Center, there was a jug filled with plastic wraps that were extracted from an animal’s stomach. It was learned that the plastic originated in the 1980s and stayed intact enough to be swallowed by large animals, and do impact. As the ones who caused this issue within our oceans, our forests, even our cities, I think it is imperative to do something to counteract, whether that be beach cleanups, new methods to recycle plastic, or figuring out ways to diminish the large garbage dumps that saturate our planet.
Pictured above is the skull from a harbor seal. Gray Seals can be commonly found around Long Island and are one of the larger seal breeds. Although difficult to see, Gray Seals, like many other types of seal, have sharp teeth similar to those of a dog. Seal teeth have been found to act as a warning to other animals and especially humans. Although portrayed as friendly and fluffy, seals should not be approached and the NY Marine Rescue Center tries to educate the public that you should stay 150 ft away from any hauled out seals. If you can see when you extend your arm and hold your thumb out in front of you, you are too close.
While, the NY Marine Rescue Center advises you to stay away from seals and, if they seem to be sick or harmed, to notify them, this is often not the case. As mentioned above, seals are cute and fluffy and people will try to approach them, to get a selfie, to pet them, or just to have the experience. This is not only extremely dangerous to the person, but the seal as well. Seals have a few common behaviors to try and signal people away, including flapping their flippers and, in the case of harbor seals, eating rocks. The picture above is a container full of rocks pulled from just one seal's stomach after a rescue, before which the seal was presumably approached and bothered by tourists. This is not normal behavior and is very dangerous to a seal’s digestion and stomach. Humans and seals live in places intertwined together, leaving numerous chances for close interaction. It is extremely important to leave these animals alone or notify the correct people in order to continue to live peacefully together.
A game of chutes and ladders
We got to see where they work with seals and sea turtles that were rescued for rehabilitation and will hopefully be released back into the waters. Their rescue is seasonal, where normally turtles are rescued in November to December due to cold stunning or hyperthermia, and seals during January. They typically work with 4 different species of sea turtles since those are in the Long Island area: Atlantic Green, Loggerhead, Leatherback and Kemp’s Ridley. The different species can be easily distinguished, and they are all susceptible to boat strikes, cold stunning, hunting, ingesting debris, etc.
A sea turtle's typical rehabilitation process can last 8 months. They want to take blood samples as soon as possible as it is easy to see what may be wrong physically on the outside, but it is harder to tell what is going on inside. This will then allow them to see what’s going on to set a course of action for their rehab plan. They will also have a physical once a month where they will take their blood, weight, and measurements to make sure they are gaining weight and growing. They will also tag their fins and insert pit tags, which are microchips. Sea turtles are tagged multiple ways just in case something happens to one tag, they have another. It is important to tag them because if they re-strand multiple times, that is not a good sign.
When the rescue center first brings a cold stunned sea turtle in, they will put them into a baby pool to gradually get their body temperature back up. They will also check the water’s pH, salinity, ozone, temperature, and chlorine (they clean with bleach, so they make sure it isn’t in the water). They clean the water every day to make sure it is a suitable environment for them to live in. They actually make their own salt water by collecting freshwater from the nearby river, shock it, then run it overnight and manually add salt to it, which I thought was pretty cool.
This picture is of one of the rooms where the rescue center will give the physicals and check blood work and water quality. On the screen she is pointing to is of a sea turtle from Texas, 2012, with a fishing hook lodged in its throat. It underwent surgery, rehabilitation, and was released back into the waters successfully.
These two pictures are of two of the turtles that are currently undergoing rehabilitation. The first image is a Kemp’s Ridley that had cold stun class 1. Cold stunning is when the waters drop too low a temperature for sea turtles to properly keep their body temperature up. They cannot regulate their body temperature themselves since they are endothermic. Cold stunning has classifications 1 through 4 where class 1 is if they are super active and responsive, and class 4 is the sea turtle has no response but is still alive. The second and third pictures are of a turtle that had debilitated turtle syndrome and was found young, small, and underweight drifting through seaweed. It had many wounds and barnacles on it, weighing it down. Normally turtles won’t have too many barnacles since they are very fast and active. Now, both turtles are doing much better, as I saw while I was there.
In the tank in the second picture, you can see a blue object in the center. That is a nutrient enrichment device, which is to provide mental and physical stimulation. Kemp’s like to hide, so it provides a place to do so as well. There is also a flow system for stimulation where they can swim against it.
This is Chestnut who is non-releasable. Since she was cold stunned, she was stranded and got hit by a boat which can deform the shells of sea turtles and cause air to get trapped underneath, which happened to her. She had a vest on her shell that helps with her buoyancy issues and diving.
Overall, this was a very eye-opening experience. I have been interested in sea turtles and their rehabilitation process ever since watching a sea turtle release when I was a kid, and I have been wanting to volunteer at the NY Rescue Center to get hands-on experience with marine mammals. This is a great place to help and get involved to keep our little sea friends safe in their homes.
Seals and Humans
by Sydney Hennessy
A large number of seals come into the NY Marine Rescue Center with damage done by various types of plastic. Pictured above are two bags of such plastic. The green colored clump was wrapped around a large seal, leaving gruesome lacerations across their neck. The orange strand was wrapped around a young seal, just a pup. Luckily, the plastic was small enough to only leave a small, and healable, laceration. Plastic is a large issue in today’s world. It takes years, sometimes decades, to degrade and even then it is present as microplastics, equally as harmful.
On exhibit at the NY Marine Rescue Center, there was a jug filled with plastic wraps that were extracted from an animal’s stomach. It was learned that the plastic originated in the 1980s and stayed intact enough to be swallowed by large animals, and do impact. As the ones who caused this issue within our oceans, our forests, even our cities, I think it is imperative to do something to counteract, whether that be beach cleanups, new methods to recycle plastic, or figuring out ways to diminish the large garbage dumps that saturate our planet.
Pictured above is the skull from a harbor seal. Gray Seals can be commonly found around Long Island and are one of the larger seal breeds. Although difficult to see, Gray Seals, like many other types of seal, have sharp teeth similar to those of a dog. Seal teeth have been found to act as a warning to other animals and especially humans. Although portrayed as friendly and fluffy, seals should not be approached and the NY Marine Rescue Center tries to educate the public that you should stay 150 ft away from any hauled out seals. If you can see when you extend your arm and hold your thumb out in front of you, you are too close.
A game of chutes and ladders
by An Kreidler-Siwinski
Today in class we discussed alewife migrations. Alewife are an anadromous species, meaning that they spend most of their time in the ocean, but breed in freshwater. When alewives have to go back upriver to spawn they cannot get past human made dams, so people created metal chutes for the fish to swim up. This works, but the chutes can get clogged with leaves and sticks. New fish ladders were then created to allow the alwives to go upstream past obstructions. The ladders looked like a natural slope on the side of dams so they did not need as much maintenance as the metal chutes.
Unfortunately, alewives can not jump much more than six inches. This means that even relatively small human made structures in the water can disrupt alewife migrations. There are still three areas of the Peconic river that need fish ladders installed to allow the fish to get upstream. Local groups are fundraising to build fish ladders and hope to have all three ladders made in five to seven years.
Alewives are important to their ecosystem. Birds like ospreys and eagles, as well as bigger fish like bluefish and striped bass depend on alwives for prey. It was interesting to learn about the alewife life cycle in class today. The females can have about 100,000 eggs which sink in the water. Eggs hatch in roughly six days. These young fish are called “fry”. They stay in the freshwater until autumn. Then they migrate downstream. Having access to the Peconic river is important to this species because they need to spawn in freshwater then travel out to the saltwater to live as adults.
The first picture shows a fish ladder next to a dam. The second photo is of the water above the dam. Photo credits go to Sam Katz
Today in class we discussed alewife migrations. Alewife are an anadromous species, meaning that they spend most of their time in the ocean, but breed in freshwater. When alewives have to go back upriver to spawn they cannot get past human made dams, so people created metal chutes for the fish to swim up. This works, but the chutes can get clogged with leaves and sticks. New fish ladders were then created to allow the alwives to go upstream past obstructions. The ladders looked like a natural slope on the side of dams so they did not need as much maintenance as the metal chutes.
Unfortunately, alewives can not jump much more than six inches. This means that even relatively small human made structures in the water can disrupt alewife migrations. There are still three areas of the Peconic river that need fish ladders installed to allow the fish to get upstream. Local groups are fundraising to build fish ladders and hope to have all three ladders made in five to seven years.
Alewives are important to their ecosystem. Birds like ospreys and eagles, as well as bigger fish like bluefish and striped bass depend on alwives for prey. It was interesting to learn about the alewife life cycle in class today. The females can have about 100,000 eggs which sink in the water. Eggs hatch in roughly six days. These young fish are called “fry”. They stay in the freshwater until autumn. Then they migrate downstream. Having access to the Peconic river is important to this species because they need to spawn in freshwater then travel out to the saltwater to live as adults.
The first picture shows a fish ladder next to a dam. The second photo is of the water above the dam. Photo credits go to Sam Katz
by Sam Katz
One of the really interesting, and important, topics we learned about on the trip to the Long Island Marine Rescue Center was the dangers that sea turtles face on and around Long Island. It may be surprising to learn that there are actually several species of sea turtle that inhabit the waters off of Long Island, given that they are usually thought of as more exotic animals. However, there are actually four species living off our shores: the leatherback, loggerhead, green, and Kemp's ridley, in descending size order.
This brings us to the first danger that faces these turtles, and is responsible for most of the turtles that end up in the Rescue Center, cold stuns. A cold stun is basically the poikilotherm (cold blooded) equivalent of hypothermia. Turtles cannot endogenously regulate their body temperatures the way that marine mammals can, and so when temperatures drop, their metabolism can slow to the point where they are incapacitated. Sometimes severely stunned turtles can have a heartbeat as low as 1 bmp! This is possible because they are reptiles and have a much more flexible homeostasis than mammals do, however that low of a metabolic rate is still extremely dangerous for the turtles. In less extreme cases, cold stunning can put the turtle at risk for ship strikes, starvation, and predation, but in the most severe cases, can result in drowning and straight up death.
Cold stunning is a much larger danger for smaller animals due to the square cube law, where surface area is proportionally greater than body mass in smaller animals, so they lose heat faster. Therefore, Kemp's Ridley turtles, which only get about as big as 100 lbs, and younger green/loggerhead turtles are the most susceptible to it, while it basically never happens to 1,000 lb leatherbacks.
We got to see one cold stun victim, an unnamed Kemps Ridley turtle, dubbed 64 because of their 64064 tag number.
With all classes of cold stun, however, precautions have to be taken to warm the animal up gradually, sometimes over days, to avoid sending them into shock. This can unfortunately happen when well meaning people try to rescue turtles on their own, wrapping them in towels and putting them in heated environments.
At the marine center, small pools of carefully temperature controlled water are used to bring the animals body temperature up to safe levels, at which point they are put in one of the tanks in pictures 3, as they are fed and rehabilitated until release. You can read more about the rehab process in Riley’s blog post.
Another danger sea turtles face is vessel strikes. These are a significant danger to all large air breathing marine organisms, as inherently being at the surface puts them within distance of ship hulls and propellers.
We had the opportunity to see Chestnut, a green sea turtle, and victim of a verssel strike some time ago. When her shell healed after the vessel strike, it trapped air underneath it in a bubble, making her very unbalanced when she swims, and unable to survive in the wild any longer. Because of this she is a permanent resident of the marine center, and the staff feed her lettuce and fish.
This brings us to the first danger that faces these turtles, and is responsible for most of the turtles that end up in the Rescue Center, cold stuns. A cold stun is basically the poikilotherm (cold blooded) equivalent of hypothermia. Turtles cannot endogenously regulate their body temperatures the way that marine mammals can, and so when temperatures drop, their metabolism can slow to the point where they are incapacitated. Sometimes severely stunned turtles can have a heartbeat as low as 1 bmp! This is possible because they are reptiles and have a much more flexible homeostasis than mammals do, however that low of a metabolic rate is still extremely dangerous for the turtles. In less extreme cases, cold stunning can put the turtle at risk for ship strikes, starvation, and predation, but in the most severe cases, can result in drowning and straight up death.
Cold stunning is a much larger danger for smaller animals due to the square cube law, where surface area is proportionally greater than body mass in smaller animals, so they lose heat faster. Therefore, Kemp's Ridley turtles, which only get about as big as 100 lbs, and younger green/loggerhead turtles are the most susceptible to it, while it basically never happens to 1,000 lb leatherbacks.
We got to see one cold stun victim, an unnamed Kemps Ridley turtle, dubbed 64 because of their 64064 tag number.
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| Image 1 - Kemps Ridley Sea Turtle no. 64064, juvenile size, approximately 2 feet long, swimming around their tank. The rescue center did not know the sex of the turtle. Recovering well from the cold stun, 64 was somewhat languid in manner when we saw them, simply swimming into the current to stay at one spot in the tank, and occasionally coming up to breathe. |
64 was a Class I cold stun, the least severe kind. There are four classes of cold stun.
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| Image 2 - Cold stun classification chart hanging in the room where animals are first brought into when they arrive at the rescue center. They measure the cloacal temperature of the turtle (equivalent to rectal), and see if the turtle resists pressure on its flipper or flinches at touches to the corner of its eyes to determine the severity of cold stun. |
With all classes of cold stun, however, precautions have to be taken to warm the animal up gradually, sometimes over days, to avoid sending them into shock. This can unfortunately happen when well meaning people try to rescue turtles on their own, wrapping them in towels and putting them in heated environments.
At the marine center, small pools of carefully temperature controlled water are used to bring the animals body temperature up to safe levels, at which point they are put in one of the tanks in pictures 3, as they are fed and rehabilitated until release. You can read more about the rehab process in Riley’s blog post.
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| Image 3 - Our tour guide taking a question while 64 swims in their tank. The inlet pipes can be seen, as well as the corner of one of the enrichment structures in the bottom right. I also included this one because someone took a picture on their smartphone during my picture. |
Another danger sea turtles face is vessel strikes. These are a significant danger to all large air breathing marine organisms, as inherently being at the surface puts them within distance of ship hulls and propellers.
We had the opportunity to see Chestnut, a green sea turtle, and victim of a verssel strike some time ago. When her shell healed after the vessel strike, it trapped air underneath it in a bubble, making her very unbalanced when she swims, and unable to survive in the wild any longer. Because of this she is a permanent resident of the marine center, and the staff feed her lettuce and fish.
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| Image 4 - This is Chestnut, the green turtle, wearing her little floaty vest to keep her more trimmed in the water after her ship strike injury. The Staff member was feeding her lettuce, which she is apparently picky about, and you can see fish on the tray in the foreground. Green turtles are omnivores when they are young, hence the mix of food types. |
Another risk to sea turtles is overencumberment by biota. Sea turtles often have algae, barnacles, and other external life growing on their shells.
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| Image 5 - This is a barnacle that was pulled off of the shell of a turtle with debilliatated turtle syndrome. You can see that it too has many smaller barnacles clinging to it. It isn’t hard to imagine how a lot of those on your back would slow you down. Also, thank you to Ian, the hand model for this shot. |
This is usually relatively harmeless, however, when large amounts of this exo-biota piles up on their shell the added weight, and especially drag, can significantly hinder their ability to swim. This can exhaust the animal and make it difficult to eat and escape predators etc.. This is termed debilitated turtle syndrome. We got to see another kemps ridley at the center who was found suffering from this issue, but is now making a full recovery.
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| Image 6 - Another Juvenile Kemps ridley, no. 6120, taking a breath at the surface through their nostrils. This turtle was far more active, doing laps against the current, then turning around and zooming back down with the current flow twice as fast. I kept picturing them going “weeeeeeee” as they jetted downstream in their tank. |
All of these external factors can harm the animals, but as mentioned before, when trying to help it is important that humans not accidentally do harm. That is the final danger that I wanted to mention, humans who are trying to help, but unintentionally do harm. I mentioned temperature shock earlier, but making sure that the turtles are not stressed, bored, or lethargic is equally important. All of the turtles have pipes that cycle water through their tanks at speed to simulate current (except for chestnut because of her difficulties swimming), so the turtles have a reason to move, as well as a structure to hide under to minimize stress (See picture 3). The Rescue Center also has an enrichment schedule to interact with the turtles and keep them stimulated and ready to live normal turtle lives once they are released.
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| Image 7 - Turtle enrichment schedule. This chart lays out which turtles get which toys/shelters/food on which days to mix it up for the animals. The chart is also meant to simplify the job for volunteers so they can help out with basic things with the animals. |
Sea turtles face a great number of dangers, and keeping them safe so there will be turtles around for future generations is a challenge, but an important one. So, thank you to the Long Island Marine Rescue Center.
Stonybrook Sea(l)wolves
by Matt Dean
As a surfer who is in the water year round I see more seals than surfers when I'm in the water during the winter and they have always piqued my interest, so it was the information about them that I found most fascinating. While there are 5 species of seals known to inhabit New York's waters, we focused on the Gray, Harp, and Harbor seals. The seals that I see most frequently are the Gray seals, I'm able to distinguish them from the others because of their size and unique horse look. I was able to see and handle the skull of one at the rescue center and when compared to a horse skull they are nearly indistinguishable.
Their teeth always freak me out when I'm in the water with them and seeing their teeth up close in the skull did not make me feel any better, especially when I learned that they swallow their fish whole so the teeth are purely for defense. When they bring seals to the rescue center the biologists have to wear chainmail gloves to protect their hands because of the teeth and bite force of the seals. They also need to use a prop to keep the seal's mouth open and a large syringe to put down the seal's throat when they are being stubborn and won't eat during the rehabilitation process.
The rehabilitation process usually takes eight weeks for them, and the NYMRC is the only place in New York that will rehabilitate seals. During that process they are put on meal plans, possibly antibiotics, or a physical rehab process depending on their reason for admission. After their rehab program you can find most of the seals being released at Tiana in Hampton Bays after the center gets permission from noaa to do so. While the biologist told us it’s not likely, as the seals shed their coats, sometimes the animals will be released with satellite tags that are useful to science as it helps us gain a better understanding of their movements and use of habitat.
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